Seems like an overreaction to me.
Posted on 02/17/2023 8:39:18 AM PST by george76
Small pico balloons typically range between $12 and $180 while an F-22 Raptor is estimated to be around $200 million
...
Sen. Ted Cruz took to Twitter Thursday to criticize Joe Biden for ordering an F-22 fighter jet to shoot down what may have been a hobby club’s science project off the coast of Alaska earlier last week.
Cruz, R-Texas, joked that Biden’s decision to authorize the $200 million fighter jet to use a $400,000 missile to shoot down what may have been a $12 balloon serves as a "powerful deterrence" to high school students interested in creating their own at-home science balloons.
The comment came after the Northern Illinois Bottlecap Balloon Brigade’s (NIBBB), an Illinois-based hobbyist club, said their pico balloon that was floating off the west coast of Alaska went missing the same day a Lockheed Martin jet shot down an unidentified object matching its description.
"To be fair, Biden is providing is powerful deterrence for any high school science clubs that might try to invade America…." Cruz wrote on Twitter.
...
The club’s globe-trotting balloon, which was last reported to be hovering at 38,910 ft. on Feb. 10, may have been one of three unidentified aerial objects the U.S. Air Force shot out of the sky
...
The group said that its trajectory put it directly over the central Yukon Territory on Feb. 11, where an object was shot out of the sky.
National Security Council spokesman John Kirby also said the objects shot down Feb. 10-12 may not have been from China or another foreign country but "could just be balloons."
...
Small pico balloons typically range between $12 and $180. They often carry an 11-gram tracker, with HF and VHF/UHG antennas to update their positions as they travel around the world, according to Aviation Week.
(Excerpt) Read more at foxnews.com ...
Wag the balloon!
How can the IC prove that is not an alien device?
How do we know this is not a constructed cover story?
Do the FIB have imbeds in this domestic terrorist group?
We need a hotline so that hobbyists can message the Pentagon with “Balloons up, don’t shoot!”.
I really hope the pilot that did the shoot-down gets a new callsign, “Pico”.
Sometimes a balloon is just a balloon.
Wag the balloon - to distract the public from - Seymour Hersh reveals how the US blew up Nord Stream 2 ..
At a Senate hearing, top US diplomat Victoria Nuland celebrated the Nord Stream 2 pipeline bombing..
FJB says he’s not going to apologize for shooting down the balloons. Personally, I don’t GAS. Sure beats watching him play pin the tail on the donkey all day long.
Lol President Retard is just about as stupid as they come
“may have been”
this pilot should be embarrassed....
We have satellites in space that can track objects, can pin-point individuals and vehicles on planet earth, and certainly can follow UFO’s in flight and record where they land or crash. Were none of the flying objects being tracked by satellite????
Have a cigar. :)
Nope, the Air Force has created a new medal for its pilots.
Imagine if the Chinese were to take a cue after this balloon fiasco, and then, launched thousands of that kind of balloon over our skies. We’d deplete our stock of missiles from shooting them down, and then, the Chinese would be safe to fly their bomber and fighter jets over the U.S., where we’d then be defenseless.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.